Independent Gay Forum - CultureWatch

Another Video Against Same-Sex Marriage Whose Underlying Facts Will Be Ignored

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

Here’s a video I'm afraid we’ll be seeing more of – a young man from Massachusetts fired from his job for objecting to a coworker’s announcement that she was going to marry her same-sex partner.

The key legal issue (like that matters) is whether he is correct that she was harassing him throughout the day, or whether he is offering a self-serving version of events. Either could be true. I’m skeptical that his employer would have fired him for a single incident like this on a single day, but those are questions to be investigated (not like anyone will care). He could be right that the coworker was taunting him.

But two things about the video jumped out at me. First, and overwhelmingly, I was struck by how immediately his joy at a coworker’s happiness turned into sour judgementalism. Are his religious beliefs really so harsh that they have this effect on his normal human emotions, ecstatic for his co-worker one moment, and disgusted the next? Is it the role of religion to transform the joy we feel for other people into an emotional menace?

Second, his repeated argument in the first two-thirds of the tape warning people in other states about how they, too, could suffer this kind of joy-deficit if their state passes same-sex marriage completely dissolves before our eyes when he intently criticizes the employee training tape about expressing opposition to someone of the same-sex making a pass at you. If that’s actually what the tape says (and this seriously undercuts his credibility, in my eyes – I honestly can’t imagine this not falling under the rubric of sexual harassment, at least if it were repeated) then his concern about gay marriage laws is the smallest part of his concern. As with so many other arguments purporting to be about same-sex marriage, the real concern he has is with open homosexuals in the workplace he shares with them. And if he thinks stopping gay marriage will halt that, too, he has another think coming.

Again, I doubt any of this will actually matter as the tape make the rounds of the right wing sites. But I couldn’t help noticing.

Or How About We Call GLAAD And Tell Them To Lighten Up Instead?

info@indegayforum.org (Brian Chase) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Brian Chase

GLAAD is encouraging people to call Comedy Central to whine about Wednesday’s hilarious episode of South Park. The episode revolves around the boys changing the definition of the word “fag” to refer to irritating Harley drivers.

Not only does the episode confer a valuable public service by drawing attention to the menace posed by attention-seeking jerks who ride without mufflers, it also lets kids know that gay people are O.K., but GLAAD is all in a tizzy because the episode drops the f-bomb about a zillion times.

GLAAD even goes so far as to suggest that the cavalier use of the word “fag” in a gay-positive way in a comedy show can lead to kids killing themselves:

this year, an 11-year-old Massachusetts student named Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover, unable to endure the unrelenting anti-gay bullying and name-calling he experienced at school, committed suicide

Seriously? They are going there? Are they really suggesting that there is no difference between a joke about the word “fag” and tormenting a child in school?

So, for my friends at GLAAD, let me offer some desperately needed perspective. Using the word “retard” in a joke is crass, and possibly funny. Calling a kid with Down’s Syndrome “retard” is cruel and savage. Using the word “bitch” while singing along to a rap song in your Toyota is somewhat pathetic, but harmless. Calling your wife “bitch” on a daily basis means you are a vicious jerk. It’s called context, people.

Rare Bipartisan Agreement

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

This story about the last-minute Democratic National Committee emails to Maine voters begging them to help out Jon Corzine in New Jersey(!), and failing to mention the referendum in their own state is, I’m afraid, a cautionary tale about the naivete (or just wishful thinking) of minority groups who depend on a single party.

Of course the DNC is going to want to help their party members, and Jon Corzine was Exhibit A of those in need; he couldn’t have been more pathetic if he’d been holding a sign saying “Will Govern For Food.”

In contrast, Question 1 – and, in, fact, our fundamental legal equality – was and is not a Democratic Party issue, no matter how much we try to will that into being. No matter the odds, no matter the long-term harm (and this election did us some very serious long-term harm), gay marriage in particular is electoral Kryptonite. When our marital rights are on the ballot we can count on Democrats for a laurel and hearty handshake, and a nervously articulated prior commitment elsewhere.

Why we believe otherwise is a mystery. The Democratic Party, and the President, himself, made it very clear that when it comes to elections about our rights, we’re on our own. Which is not to say Democrats are our enemy, or anywhere near as harmful to our equality as the near-death wing of what was once the Republican Party. We may very well be able to squeeze some bills out of Congress, like ENDA, and that’s not anything we could expect from the other party.

But on gay marriage, both parties are in perfect alignment -- with each other, and with the religious right -- wishing (and praying) it would go away.

"This Gay Marriage Thing" -- Maggie Gallagher

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by David Link

A lot of people are pondering the state of gay marriage in the wake of our loss in Maine. But I think Tuesday’s election results should get us all thinking about a more important, and much deeper storyline: the state of anti-gay prejudice. The full results of the off-off-year election show that after literally centuries of predominance, anti-gay prejudice is seeing its final days.

The loss in Maine actually makes that point. While the conventional wisdom characterizes it as a “stinging setback for the national gay rights movement” – and that’s from our friends at the NY Times -- that’s correct only if you think gay rights equals marriage. Marriage is the only issue we lose any more, so of course it presents a tantalizing story for the mainstream press, who get to sympathize with us while just doing their job reporting the news of our incomprehensible political impotence.

But on Tuesday in barely noticed elections elsewhere in the country, we won voter approval of (1) domestic partnerships in Washington; (2) an anti-discrimination ordinance in Kalamazoo; (3) an openly gay city council president in Detroit; and (4) an openly lesbian mayoral candidate in Houston. That seems to say something about the state of anti-gay prejudice in this country.

The Kalamazoo election was particularly telling and anachronistic; it’s something we just don’t see much of any more, an attempt to take away simple non-discrimination protection. And nearly 62% of voters chose to keep it in place. That’s some evidence of how deeply into the mainstream of this country’s politics gay acceptance has moved. Somehow, I’m not thinking Kalamazoo’s gay community is feeling a stinging setback.

Marriage is not just an outlier, it is the only outlier. The fringe of the right will complain about any legal protections for lesbians and gay men, but they can’t put together a majority on any issue except for full marital equality. An enormous majority of Americans even support repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, though political cowardice on that issue still lingers in Congress -- the same cowardice that got us the policy in the first place.

This chart shows that more than a majority in virtually every state, including the ones with the most anti-gay sentiment, supports employment and housing protection, hate crimes laws and health benefits for homosexuals. The trailing issue in all states is always marriage, with majority-plus support in only six states.

In short, these are hard times for homophobes. That’s why gay marriage is such a satisfying issue for the ones who are left. It is the only issue where they can rouse up enough residual bias against gays among otherwise fair-minded people to win an election.

And the importance of that last word cannot be overemphasized. It is direct elections where anti-gay prejudice about marriage can best be exploited. This may be the most toxic consequence of Maine. It is a warning shot to legislatures to avoid exercising their best judgment about fairness for gay citizens. The anti-gay bias that short-circuits rational debate in the electorate at large will make legislative action futile, so don't even bother to try.

As I argued before, I would like nothing better than to have a full discussion among the electorate on the merits (or flaws) of the public policy issue of gay marriage, but neither Maine nor California took advantage of that opportunity; at the least, it was offered by one side, but was of little interest in the other side's strategy. The anti-marriage campaigns were about anything but gay marriage.

If there’s any doubt about that, compare the arguments in these campaigns to the arguments the right makes in court when trying to defend exclusionary marriage laws. No responsible lawyer could argue to a court (without worrying about sanctions) that gay marriage will force schools to teach children about homosexuality in the second grade, nor can a lawyer try to scare a court with images of kids reading books like King and King. Lawyers have to focus on the issue before them in their briefs and arguments in court, because courts are forced to assess the rationality of the arguments before them, and have to explain themselves in written opinions. There is no room in court for the political slurs that make up anti-gay marriage electoral campaigns. The best the right can do in court is arguing about procreation, deference to the legislative branch (an argument I wouldn't expect them to make in the future -- at least not with a straight face) and the will of the people. Not a word about second graders.

That enormous distance between the arguments made to courts about gay marriage and the obfuscations used in political campaigns says a great deal. I do not ever expect to have the kind of thoughtful discussion in public that courts are required to have. But, the very fact we can’t have a public discussion about gay marriage when gay marriage is the issue might suggest, to reasonable people, that there may be something underlying the anti-marriage forces besides a desire to do what’s best for the public weal and what's fair for a minority. Contra Rod Dreher and others, 31 wrongs do not make a right.

Maine was an extremely hard loss. But Washington looks to be a solid victory, and Kalamazoo was a blow-out. The gay rights movement is hardly on the ropes in this country, and our opponents should be taking little comfort from their ability to deny us this one right.

My Great-Grandmother and the Bitch-Slap Theory of Politics

info@indegayforum.org (Brian Chase) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Brian Chase

My great-grandmother was a wonderful woman. Her home was one of the warmest, most comforting places I have ever been, and many of my best memories as a child revolve around her kitchen.

My great-grandmother was also a bigot. As a child, she patiently explained to me that the Ku Klux Klan was a force for good (they built schools!). She thought that Brown v. Board of Education was one of the worst events in U.S. history, equaled only by the end of mandatory school prayer. In response to a horrific string of murders of black children in Atlanta, she commented that such a thing shouldn't happen “even to children like that."

My great-grandmother was a product of her time. The odds of a working-class Southern woman born over a century ago being anything other than a bigot were slim to none, but even now it feels kind of gross and traitorous for me to acknowledge her bigotry. She clearly met any reasonable standard for the word ‘bigot’, yet applying the word to her feels disgusting.

This brings me to Rod Dreher and the bitch-slap theory of politics.

Rod recently penned a column whose central thesis was “I dares you to call me and everybody else who opposes gay marriage a bigot!” This is a classic bitch-slap tactic. “Call me a bigot and you call all those nice old ladies who voted for Prop 8 bigots too!”

The bitch-slap tactic isn’t so much an argument as a dare. As Josh Marshall eloquently explained, a political bitch-slap involves taunting an opponent in a way intended to highlight their lack of strength or courage. If the person whom you bitch-slap responds angrily, they look irrational or crazy. If they respond in a calm, measured way, they look and feel like wimps. It is a win-win for the person doing the bitch-slapping. It’s also a cheap, nasty tactic that should be recognized as such.

Rod’s argument is also, frankly, unfair to bigots. My great-grandmother didn’t have much of a chance to be anything but a bigot. Her bigotry was an accident of history, and not in any real sense a choice. Frankly, I do not blame her for what she was. I blame the politicians and writers and preachers who actually had the chance to shape her environment and chose to do so in a way that inflamed bigotry. I don’t know if those people were actually bigots. I do know that they deliberately spread the evil of bigotry, which to my mind is far more immoral.

Election Reflections 2009

info@indegayforum.org (Stephen H. Miller) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Stephen H. Miller

While it's hard not to be heart-broken over Maine voters rolling back marriage equality in one state where it was legislatively (not judicially) created, there are some key lessons that might be learned. Or not, more likely.

On marriage, the "M" word remains our biggest hurdle, no thanks to a "progressive" president who still reiterates his belief that marriage is only between a man and a woman, which anti-equality activists certainly make use of, and an LGBT movement that responds with "Thank you, sir, may I have another."

While all-but-marriage partnerships may just survive in Washington State, advocates face the hard truth that U.S. voters remain unwilling to grant us marriage equality in the vast majority of states.

Great Britain doesn't use the "M" word for all but marriage—they use "civil partnerships"—and many European nations that now have marriage equality first went through a period of all but marriage. We may have to as well (with the stipulation that the federal Defense of Marriage Act be amended to give equal rights to all but marriage partnerships recognized by the states—and even that remains a huge political hurdle, despite Democratic congressional majorities, which are sure to shrink in two years time—tick, tock, tick, tock).

Skipping "all but marriage" and demanding the "M" word may make for rousing protests, but at some point you have to admit that, when voters have the final say, it's a failed strategy, barring a sea change in popular opinion.

In the political contests, it's not all gloom. Bob McDonnell, the new GOP governor of Virginia, may be a Christian conservative, but he barely mentioned social issues in his campaign (while his Democratic opponent, Creigh Deeds, lambasted McDonnell for being against women's equality in a 20-year old master's thesis, which was also anti-gay, but that point was not used by Deeds.) Both Deeds and McDonnell had voted in the Virginia legislature for a successful state amendment banning same-sex marriage, although Deeds receive all the organizational LGBT endorsements. But McDonnell, while avoiding social issues (other than declaring his present support for women in the workplace) ran a low tax, contained-government campaign. And that's why he won, with some Republican and libertarian gay support.

I haven't followed the New Jersey race in which Republican moderate Chris Christie ousted Demcrat John Corzine, a close Obama ally, but it doesn't seem like gay issues were much discussed there, either.

In New York's 23rd congressional district, liberal, pro-gay-marriage Republican Dede Scozzafava was challenged on the right by Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman. She withdrew and endorsed Democrat Bill Owens after tanking in pre-election polls. Owens, a gay-marriage opponent like the president he supports, won. If Scozzafava hadn't been so far to the left on economic issues (her support for bigger government spending and union "card check" fueled her rightwing opposition), it would have been a clearer test of the GOP's willingness to support gay-marriage advocates in its big tent. But we'll have to wait to see those contests.

Anything But Marriage

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

I don’t usually think of George Will as someone who misses the point. Even when he is wrong about something, he usually understands and can articulate what is at the heart of the debate. That's one of his particular virtues.

So I was more than just disappointed in his column this morning about the election in Washington State. Reading his column makes it seem as if Washington’s electorate is voting on a referendum to disclose the names of petition signers. Will offers one offhand sentence to mischaracterize the election (“The referendum is on a new state law that some say establishes same-sex marriage.” Yes, “some” say that – the proponents), but virtually every other word in his column is about a completely tangential lawsuit that is pending in the courts.

Will, of course, has no obligation to write about the subject of the actual election two days before election day -- though people could certainly be forgiven for thinking that might be what the column is about. What is most confounding is that the tone of the column is so characteristic of the core tactics of the anti-gay side. Its premise is right out of the 99 and 44 one hundredths percent of Pure Fox News that is not news: The liberals are out to get decent conservatives in this country: “It is time to speak up about thuggish liberalism,” he writes in the final paragraph.

Well, maybe it is. Writers on this site can speak from experience about such thuggery. But Washington is having an election, not about thuggery, but about whether to approve a legislative proposal to correct a history of injustice to same-sex couples, an imperfect one that attempts to give them everything but marriage. The opponents cannot tolerate such equality, and lacking real arguments, want to talk about anything but marriage: implicating gays in the recruitment (if not actual molestation) of children; insinuating that religion would somehow be undermined by domestic partnership; and now distracting the voters from the actual subject by focusing them on the privacy rights of petition signers.

Two days before the election, Will has added his considerable voice to theirs in preventing voters from focusing on the issue before them in the referendum. The press keeps presenting these elections as being about gay marriage. But once again, we’re seeing how little interest the right has in having that discussion.

Frank Schubert and His Dark Materials

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

Jim Burroway has an excellent post at Box Turtle Bulletin on the contrasting messages in the Maine election: Frank Schubert's ugly, fear-inflected slurs against marriage equality (when he even bothers to address marriage, which isn’t very often), vs. our hopeful appeals to the better angels of the electorate.

Jim is worried that this is a recipe for us losing, and he has a point. Schubert has worked hard to create doubts among many moderate heterosexuals about what would happen if same-sex marriage were legalized. These are fraudulent doubts, but they are nontheless effective ones.

Jim's concerns about our response are well-taken, but he doesn’t offer a better strategy for us. I think that’s because there isn’t one.

Here is the gist of his analysis:

“. . . people don’t see how same-sex marriage will impact them and their families — especially not enough to pay attention to the issue and go out and vote in an off-year election on someone else’s problem. . . . So how do you fix it? Change the topic from something nobody personally cares about to something everyone cares about.”

In both California and Maine – and in Washington, which keeps getting left out – the other side appeals to education as the primary self-interest that heterosexuals care about. As Jim notes, there simply isn’t much reason for the 95-97% of Americans who are heterosexual to care about same-sex marriage, but everyone (even us!) cares about education.

But it’s not just “education” that is being appealed to; it is centuries of prejudice about the “Homosexual Menace” when it comes to children. The savvy characters running the anti-marriage campaigns know enough to finesse their leverage of prejudice. But when you start insinuating that legalizing homosexual marriage will lead to second graders learning about gay sex, it’s hardly accurate to claim your argument is a high-minded one about education.

That is why fear works for the other side. That gut-level dread and misunderstanding is exactly what we have spent generations trying to erode in people’s consciousness. The other side is not interested in conscious thought, they’re manipulating unarticulated bias, which they get to take for granted as part of their voters' psyche.

We don’t have any similar bias to work with. Or even rational fears. The only thing we have in our toolbox is what is best about people: their sense of justice, understanding and fairness about how majorities can advantage themselves, even without meaning to disadvantage a minority. As I was reading Jim’s piece, I kept wondering what kind of campaign we would run if we tried to emulate Frank Schubert’s tactics. We just don’t have the fundamental material to work with – accumulated prejudice – that he has.

That is, in fact, the dilemma any very tiny minority with a long history of being misunderstood has in a majoritarian culture. Burdened with all those harmful stereotypes, and lacking any constitutional protection against laws that single them out, a minority’s only remedy is an appeal to the majority to move beyond the stereotypes, the little formless fears. If there is some way to present that as involving the self-interest of the majority, I would dearly love to know it.

Perhaps I’m being too narrow in my thinking, and I’m certainly open to suggestions. But the only two heterosexual self-interests I can think of are both weak tea. The first is that heterosexuals have an interest in protecting themselves from being deceived by people who are in the closet. Marriage is the arena where the closet becomes the most potentially dangerous for heterosexuals. Don’t ask, don’t tell works well enough when people are single, but if the gold standard of heterosexuality is entering into a marriage, then heterosexuals have a self-interest in making sure we are not deceiving both ourselves and consequently, them. But try making a 30-second spot out of that.

The other heterosexual self-interest is the purely political one of reasonably-minded people protecting themselves from the aggrandizement of the religious right. As I’ve argued, I think it is in the President’s self-interest to make sure we win both of these elections, because losses will energize some of his most virulent opponents. But he’s being advised by a lot of very smart people, and he doesn’t seem to see this as worrisome.

And that leaves us where we started. We simply don’t have anything bleak or cynical to use in these campaigns. That is certainly a weakness in a political campaign where the other side does have those tools. But we can only work with what we have. We can’t run a negative campaign because we don’t have anything for people to vote against.

Why We Keep Losing

info@indegayforum.org (Stephen H. Miller) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Stephen H. Miller

Maybe Maine or Washington State will break the trend and affirm by popular vote the legal equality of same-sex marriages. Maybe. We'll know in a week. But if I can jump the gun, a victory in both states looks dubious.

Not unrelatedly: A new Gallup poll should be a wake-up call to the LGBT mainstream activist groups. Should, but likely won't. The key finding:

Conservatives continue to outnumber moderates and liberals in the American populace in 2009 ... Forty percent of Americans describe their political views as conservative, 36% as moderate, and 20% as liberal. This marks a shift from 2005 through 2008, when moderates were tied with conservatives as the most prevalent group....

Changes among political independents appear to be the main reason the percentage of conservatives has increased nationally over the past year: the 35% of independents describing their views as conservative in 2009 is up from 29% in 2008.

Last November, Obama's victory and the Democrats' sweeping gains in Congress seemed to assure the leading LGBT groups (nationally, as well as their state counterparts) that they were on the politically correct track by linking LGBT rights at the hip with a broader leftwing "progressive" big government, pro-union, Democratic Party agenda (let's leave aside, as they did, last November's simultaneous voter rollback of marriage equality in California, Arizona and Florida — their focus was on bringing out the vote for Obama, which they did, even if that meant increasing the numbers of anti-gay minority voters. But those are lessons that everyone has chosen to ignore, so let's go on).

At a time when the need to forge dialogue and, eventually perhaps, alliances with libertarian conservatives who make up a sizeable part of the "tea party" resistance has never been greater, the LGBT movement groups are still devoting themselves to being loyal foot soldiers (and fundraisers) of the left, placing all their bets on the benevolence of the president they worked so tirelessly to elect and his Democratic majorities in Congress. In one year's time, those majorities are going to be a lot smaller. The clock is ticking.

More from Gallup:

The propensity to want the government to "promote traditional values" — as opposed to "not favor any particular set of values" — rose from 48% in 2008 to 53% in 2009. Current support for promoting traditional values is the highest seen in five years.

The fact that LGBT political groups abandoned lobbying for gay equality regardless of other issues and turned themselves into adjacents of the Democratic Party plays a big role, I'd argue, in why there are virtually no politicians willing to embrace a limited government, pro-growth agenda that includes ending federal government discrimination against gays in marriage and the military. [Added: A rare exception is former two-term New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, now preparing a long-shot 2012 Republican presidential run.]

The original Human Rights Campaign was willing to work with and occasionally endorse Republicans; today's HRC is nothing but a Democratic Party fundraising front (yes, I've said it before, but non-leftist gay people keep giving them money as if they were a gay rights organization, so I'm going to keep saying it).

The recent Equality March in Washington featured speakers from the leftwing Service Employees International Union. I'm just surprised ACORN wasn't invited to speak.

More. How partisan has HRC become? In the special congressional election in New York's 23rd district, a pro-gay marriage liberal Republican who supports most of HRC's "progressive" agenda is up against a liberal, pro-Obama Democrat who opposes gay marriage, and a limited government but anti-gay-equality conservative. HRC's position: no endorsement (in fact, no mention of the race on their website).

Worth Quoting

info@indegayforum.org (Stephen H. Miller) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Stephen H. Miller

As President Obama signs the new federal hate crimes statute—the only major piece of LGBT-related legislation that's likely to pass, in my view—Camille Paglia bucks the LGBT lockstep mindset, again (you have to scroll down through the jump in her latest omnibus Salon posting):

Hate crimes legislation, in my view, simply cushions people in their own subgroups and gives them a damaging sense of false entitlement. . . .

I say the law should be blind to race, gender and sexual orientation, just as it claims to be blind to wealth and power. There should be no specially protected groups of any kind, except for children, the severely disabled and the elderly, whose physical frailty demands society's care.

Rick Sincere, another independent voice, offers his own critique. As does Rob Power at Outright Libertarians.

GOTV A-Go-Go

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

The elections in Maine and Washington are less than a week away; it is now Go Time, or, in the language of politics, GOTV Time. That stands for Get Out The Vote, and it has never, to my mind, been more important for us.

Since we are not yet believed to be entitled to the promises of the federal constitution’s Equal Protection clause, we have to do exactly what the framers never intended – fight as a very small minority in the political arena for our equality. This is regrettable, but it is a fact.

Another fact is that our opposition has a very well-established GOTV infrastructure. It’s their churches, and it has proved to be amazingly successful for them. While some churches support our equality, we simply have nothing of equivalent size or consequence on our side. We have to rely on thousands and thousands of individually motivated people.

The final fact is that we don’t have fear on our side. Scaring voters is a time-tested means of getting them to the polls, and our opponents have followed the script to the letter. All we have is hope and faith in the good will of our supporters and particularly the undecided voters who hold our equality in their hands. While hope was a guiding theme of the last presidential election, Barack Obama’s political cynicism has held sway when it comes to us, undercutting this theme, at least when it comes to gay equality. He’s going to make us do this on our own.

So let’s.

Over the next six days, the campaigns in Washington and Maine need simple things from us. You can call voters from your own phone for an hour or two – they’ll have a list of known supporters that just need to be urged to get out to the polls, or send in ballots through the mail. That will be supplemented in both states by boots on the ground, but these calls really do make a difference. More important, the lack of them can be fatal. Just a couple of hours of your time will really help.

And, of course, both campaigns will need money. The end of the campaign is when we need to be most nimble and responsive (Second-graders are now being trotted out again, learning all about gay sex – in the second grade! And that's in an ad that says people want to be supportive of us.). Both campaigns have shown that they are spending our money extremely well and responsibly. I’ve been proud to give to them both, and I urge you to do the same.

Each campaign is winnable – or losable. Whether we like it or not, we have to fight for our equality, and these elections are critical. After a long string of losses, including the stunning one in California, we need to prove – to ourselves, and to our disbelieving President – that the landscape really is changing. We are the change, or can be.

Here's the site for Washington.

And here's where to go to help in Maine.

Appreciating Paul Varnell

info@indegayforum.org (Jonathan Rauch) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Jonathan Rauch

Paul Varnell's column in the Chicago Free Press, like so much quality journalism these days, has fallen victim to the budget ax.

Paul was the founding editor of IGF, back in the 1990s, and his columns have been a mainstay of our site. His sane yet passionate pieces in the Free Press and, before that, the Windy City Times modeled a calmer, more rational kind of writing and thinking at a time when so many gay voices were shrill and doctrinaire. And it seemed there was nothing that Paul couldn't write elegantly about.

The Chicago Sun-Times has a lovely appreciation of Paul's work by Neil Steinberg.

Paul tells Steinberg: "It was my identity, and I felt I was doing something worthwhile by trying to be calm and reasonable." We hope Paul finds a new outlet. He's still needed.

More Fierce Advocacy on Marriage

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

This is not good.

No. It's worse than not good. It's miserable. I've tried to be as generous as I can to the Administration in its political struggle with a morally clear question: equality for gay couples. While the criticism was most prominently used about Afghanistan, if you want to know what dithering looks like, try to draw a straight line graph through the White House positions on same-sex couples.

And now, a week before a critical election we might just be able to win, Attorney General Eric Holder goes right into Maine and says -- directly to Maine voters -- that he and the President really don't much care, one way or the other, how the election comes out.

I'll say it again: If the right wins either or both of these elections, it will energize the worst elements of the very faction that is most harmful to the President, himself. Even if he doesn't want to help us explicitly (and it's now clear he does not), is that really the outcome he wants?

Let me offer a draft for the next White House statement about Question 1 in Maine and Referendum 71 in Washington -- or whatever the next gay marriage equality battle turns out to be: "Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?"

H/T to KC Johnson

Anatomy of a Slur (Part 2)

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

The central deception fabricated against us in the SFMM ad, “They Said” is that while we promised we wouldn’t push same-sex marriage on schoolchildren, we can’t be trusted. Last time we deceived only adults, but this time it will be the children who will “suffer."

The use of children in modern American political campaigns to terrify parents about homosexuals dates back to Anita Bryant’s campaign in the 1970s to withdraw gay rights in Dade County, Florida, though it has a more ancient pedigree. It is another example of adapting a malevolent prejudicial notion used to slander a different minority: Jews. It is the gay Blood Libel, though without claiming we actually kill children.

As Jon Rauch explains, the concern is not, in fact, with school curriculum; it is about gay marriage as a reality in the broader world today. But it goes further than that. Children don’t know about the law governing marriage. Any same-sex couples, whether married, united in a civil union or simply living together with no legal rights present the same problem – children observe the world and ask questions.

It is unrealistic to believe children can be protected from television, movies, books, magazines, and the gay parents of their soccer teammates. School curriculum is formalized, and thus seems to be where anti-gay parents can exercise control. The use of the verb “push” four times in a 30-second ad inflames the sense that parents who want gays to remain in the closet have lost the upper hand.

What those parents really want is to prohibit any discussion of gay couples, period; and that has nothing to do with marriage or school curriculum and everything to do with gays abandoning the closet and being honest about themselves in the world at large.

The existing curriculum reflects the earlier world they are comfortable with, which is not neutral to sexual orientation. Children are regularly taught that princes can marry princesses, which is no more than a simple reaffirmation of heterosexual love and affection. Homosexuals are simply left out – they do not exist.

If that is all children learn, then they are, in fact, learning a kind of bias in their most formative years. This has never been intentional, since the vast majority of all children are heterosexual, and are learning about themselves. But they are also learning about the broader world, and what it includes. If they are prevented from learning that a prince (so inclined) can marry another prince (who is also so inclined) then they are learning that princes cannot marry other princes.

More to the point, those children who are, or may be gay, are learning something far more perverse about themselves – they are learning that the world does not include them. Again, this is not intentional, but as any adult homosexual can testify, it is as real as anything can be.

Invisibility always works against homosexuals who are, after all, seeking their place in the public world. When the debate is about children, that invisibility gets submerged in a non-sexual environment that, nevertheless, has very strong elements of future, developing sexuality running through it. Whether it’s in the curriculum or not, children see heterosexuality everywhere. That is as it should be, since heterosexuals are everywhere. It would be preposterous to pretend that could ever change.

But it is wrong to prohibit – or think that anyone could prohibit – children from knowing that some people, and potentially some of them, will not be heterosexual. In public schools, or in any other forum, such discussions must be age appropriate, though. What teachers discuss in a second grade class is very different from classroom debates in high school.

But school districts are not running amok if some of them make a conscious, public decision to include books like King and King as one book among the thousands children will have access to. That book was turned into a wedge in California, where it was invoked to make it seem schools were “teaching” homosexuality. The book is subject to similar abuse now in Maine.

The fear this ad exploits is no more than that – an inchoate fear. It is an anxiety about homosexuality itself. But like all fears about minorities, it refuses to accept that it is not universal. That is the truth the ads for No on 1 so successfully express. As between these two messages, and these two strategies, I am proud to be associated with the one that depends, for its success, on appealing to what is best in our nature.

Anatomy of a Slur (Part 1)

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

The latest ad from Stand For Marriage Maine is a political attack in the classic tradition of Lee Atwater’s Willie Horton ad for the first George Bush, and California Governor Pete Wilson’s infamous smear showing immigrants flooding across the border with a narrator intoning, “They keep coming.”

Both of those predecessors worked. And both of the men they helped elect have lived to see the consequences of their appeals to prejudice eat away at the credibility of their party.

There is no candidate in Maine, though, nor is there technically any party. But there is a group of people whose lives and reputations are being dragged through the mud again, and who are being lied about.

That is the central irony of the ad. It claims to be about deception, but it is the ad, itself, which deceives.

It opens, over agitated music, with the narrator saying, “In the 2005 campaign, they said they weren’t pushing for homosexual marriage, but now we know they were.” Pat Peard is quoted, from 2005 saying, “It has nothing to do with marriage,” followed by a video of Monique Hoeflinger in 2009 saying, “Literally, we launched this campaign back in 2005.” The narrator then says, “Now they say they won’t push teaching homosexual marriage to children in Maine schools,” with a quote from Jesse Connolly, campaign manager for No on 1, “yet they are already pushing gay-friendly books in preschools, and hiring paid gay advisors in public schools. Last time, they deceived us [with a screen-covering graphic of the word “DECEPTION”], now it’s our kids who will suffer. Vote Yes on Question 1 to prevent homosexual marriage from being pushed on Maine children.”

The rhetorical device in the ad is the oldest in the book: the vague, undifferentiated they. This is the fundamental element of which prejudice is made. All of them have a connection which others are not privy to, and (of course) they have an agenda.

I don’t know Pat Peard, or Monique Hoeflinger, or Jesse Connolly. Perhaps they have, in fact, all coordinated their comments. But if so, that circumstance, which is central to understanding the slur in this ad, is never documented. Rather, because all of them are supportive of gay equality (Connolly is not even gay), the ad’s dark tones invoking what “they have been telling us imply the connection as necessarily existing.

That paves the way for the central claim of “DECEPTION.” Normally, it is individuals who deceive, saying one thing and meaning something else. Proving that takes substantiation, but it is something well within the realm of human behavior. The burden of proof is just about short-circuited when you are claiming a group of people have been involved in deception. Different people in different contexts say a multitude of different things. That is exactly what happened here, as GoodAsYou explains. Once you’ve taken the first step of assuming they have a unified agenda, then it’s ludicrously easy to find documentable statements from different individuals in different contexts that can be woven together to demonstrate – conclusively, to people who want to believe it -- a lie.

That unitary vision of a minority group is practically the definition of prejudice. Members of minority groups have to fight to establish their identity against that sweeping, reductionist thinking. Whatever legitimate differences there are in the struggle of African-Americans and homosexuals for their equality, it is this damaged notion that makes both struggles necessary.

Ads like this invoke – rely on – the subliminal provocation of such convictions.

Frank Schubert, who is running the campaign responsible for this ad, swears he will not engage in gay-bashing, and will, in fact, do everything he can to make sure it doesn’t happen. If the premise at the heart of this ad is not actual gay-bashing, it is certainly indistinguishable from a straightforward appeal to people’s worst instincts. That has precedent in recent American politics, and a tainted history of success.

it is a stark contrast with the No on 1 campaign, which has avoided these low-road tactics with uniformly positive, decent and honest ads. The people of Maine will have to determine which of these courses in most consistent with their vision of civic life in their state.

Ross Douthat On Winning Debates

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

"The secular arguments against gay marriage, when they aren't just based on bigotry or custom, tend to be abstract in ways that don't find purchase in American political discourse. I say, ‘Institutional support for reproduction,' you say, ‘I love my boyfriend and I want to marry him.' Who wins that debate? You win that debate."

Ross Douthat is both right and wrong about who wins that debate. Yes, we win it in the long run. But to get to the long run you have to go through the short-term. And we definitely didn't win the debate in California -- or 29 other states.

What Douthat describes is the simple humanity of our appeal. We aren't asking for anything abstract at all. What is esoteric or obscure about connecting love and marriage? Who doesn't understand that? But look at the lengths our opponents go to to counter that simple truth.

So why do we lose debates, in the concrete form of very consequential (to us) elections? Because of what Douthat buries in a subordinate clause. What secular arguments against gay marriage are anything other than ". . . just based on bigotry or custom"? There are certainly arguments about children and religion, but they aren't arguments against gay marriage, they're arguments against homosexuality in the common world. The most vocal opponents of same-sex marriage find homosexuality an intrusion into a worldview that has no place for anything other than heterosexuality. That's a worldview that used to be all but universal, but it isn't any more. Marriage is the only respectable arena left where people can express their distaste for lesbians and gay men who don't have the good taste to pretend they are straight. The closet is closed for business; lesbians and gay men are on television and in government and business and sports; some of them live right there in the neighborhood and their children go to school and play soccer. All of that is done.

Marriage is the only part of the civil law where prejudice still has some hold, where ancient misunderstandings retain their bite. Every time someone has the conversation Douthat describes, we can win another voter or two. But if he has any doubt about how hard our task is (and has been for decades), he should ponder this thought, which he expressed to the Observer:

"Mr. Douthat indicated that he opposes gay marriage because of his religious beliefs, but that he does not like debating the issue in those terms. At one point he said that, sometimes, he feels like he should either change his mind, or simply resolve never to address the question in public."

How many lesbians or gay men can even imagine what a luxury it would be to be able to avoid addressing this question in public? As a heterosexual in good standing, Douthat has that option. But every heterosexual who exercises it casts a potent kind of vote in favor of the status quo, which works for them but not at all for us. Having all of those conversations, all of those debates, is no easy thing for us, or for heterosexuals. But we have no other tool to achieve the simple equality that we deserve.

(H/T Andrew)

Turning Schools into Closets

info@indegayforum.org (Jonathan Rauch) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Jonathan Rauch

So now it's official: Opponents of gay marriage in Maine do not just want to block gay marriage. They want to use the law to force all discussion of gay marriage out of the schools. In other words, they demand to turn the public schools into closets.

This was always implicit in the logic of their anti-SSM message, which is, as far as it goes, unassailable. 1) Legal gay marriage will make married gay couples more visible and grant them full legal equality. 2) Gay couples' heightened equality and visibility will increase the likelihood that gay marriage would be discussed in schools, even though marriage isn't in the Maine curriculum.

Of course, if gay marriage can be discussed despite not being in the curriculum, it can also be discussed despite not being legal in Maine. Its existence in Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, and New Hampshire might come up in the classroom, for example. So the logical consequence is: 3) The only way to protect schoolchildren's ears from mention of SSM is to censor it.

Don't take my word for it. Here's what a "Yes on 1" official says:

Mutty said gay-marriage supporters had the chance to prohibit the teaching of same-sex marriage in schools when they drafted the legislation.

"They had ample opportunity to blunt our concerns by expressly prohibiting same-sex marriage from being discussed in public schools, but they did not do so," he said.

The Maine campaign, then, is not about preventing gay marriage. It's about preventing discussion of gay marriage. But why stop at "expressly prohibiting same-sex marriage from being discussed in public schools"? How about domestic partnerships? Why, isn't the very existence of homosexuality too controversial for children's ears? How about textbooks and—hey!—library books mentioning gay marriage or gay couples? Hadn't they better be banned?

I would thank Mr. Mutty for clarifying the underlying radicalism of his cause. Let's call him on it.

(Hat tip: KC Johnson.)

Small Favors (Cont.)

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

I stick by my limited gratitude to the White House for its oblique but helpful statement about state referenda on gay equality, and specifically (kind of) marriage.

But I'm nobody's fool. President Obama is, today, headed to New Jersey to help out Jon Corzine in a very hotly contested race that could go either way. It's not a national race, or a national issue. It's just the sort of thing polticians do in cases where their considerable presence can help in very close elections.

I wouldn't ask the President to actually speak in person in Maine (even if it's just a little further up the East Coast from New Jersey) or Washington (clear out here in the West Coast). But both of these races are at least as close as the NJ governor's race, and in one sense there's more at stake. Jon Corzine's race is of interest mostly to Jon Corzine and, indirectly, to the Democratic Party -- but only indirectly. If we lose the extremely close elections in Maine and Washington, after having lost in California, it will energize the right wing across the country more than anything else I can imagine.

On many other issues, the White House has been able to manage the right wing attacks. But not on gay equality. He has told us what we want to hear (kind of) but a speech to HRC is very different from a statement directly to voters in Maine and/or Washington. Again, he's given us a tool to use to counter the damage his existing words caused, and that's good. But the new polls are showing these races neck-and-neck, and getting people to the polls will be the deciding factor. As I've argued, the 3% or so of us who are homosexual will certainly go to the polls in those states, as will a certain number of supportive heterosexuals. But an awful lot of them don't have enough of a direct interest in the ballot initiatives to drive them to vote. Our lives and equality are at stake, but not theirs.

That is a message the President can make to voters better than we ever could. It is the one extra thing we need most from him.

Pope Ratzinger: Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Homophobes

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

Andrew thinks the Pope's merger talks with anti-gay Anglicans are "almost baldly political." I'd go with "dangerous."

First, this takes the Vatican's prior acceptance of married clergy from other denominations one giant step further then the church has ever gone; the Pope is actively recruiting now. I'm not sure how he'll deal with any Anglican female clergy members, though I'm not clear how many ultra-conservative Anglicans would have gone down that road. But setting that aside, this new welcome mat to a denomination that has never had a rule requiring celibate clergy exposes the church's fundamental cynicism on this archaic and harmful doctrine.

But the most interesting question for me is whether these hybrid Catholics will be more or less observant of rules like the contraception ban -- even for married couples -- than existing Catholics are. This is where the moral rubber meets the road. If the Vatican really means it when it says sex that is not open to procreation is a sin, even within heterosexual marriage, actively opening the church to denominations that aren't so morally punctilious seems to be an admission that the principle, if not the Pope, has no clothes. Does he expect Anglicans to give up contraception?

No one could reasonably think that. Even Catholics don't follow this absurd urging from the unmarried clergy. This is about -- it is only about -- filling the ranks with more explicitly homophobic members. Conservative Anglicans have lived with both married and female clergy for decades now. They have lived with reproductive choice, and never even had to think about a ban on contraception. It is gay equality that they cannot accept.

The Vatican is certainly welcome to these new believers, if that's what they can be called. But like the Republican party before it, the church will soon learn how hard it is to deal with people you are encouraging to exercise, and take pride in, their unchecked prejudice.

Apologies to Maine

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

I feel I have to apologize to Maine for what they’re going through. Not the election itself, which is something Karl Rove’s strategy of anti-gay state constitutional amendments guarantees other states, too, will have to face. Maine’s voters could be the first to affirm equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, but they won’t be the last by any means.

No, I ought to apologize because the politics of California’s education system has now infected a perfectly innocent state. When the anti-marriage side hired California’s Schubert Flint Public Affairs to handle the Yes on Question 1 campaign, they inadvertently guaranteed that our unusual education politics would come as part of the deal.

As he did in California, Frank Schubert can’t stop trying to scare people with horror stories about how grade-school kids will learn about gay marriage. That question arose naturally in California, where our state Education Code does, in fact, mention the teaching of marriage and family life. We’ve been fighting battles over this for so long now that we take it for granted. When Schubert brought up public schools here, no one batted an eye. Of course some people would be worried about what schools would be teaching kids about marriage. We've been fighting battles like that since sex education first came up in the 1960s.

But the fit is awkward in Maine. As anyone can see in this press conference by the Speaker of the Maine House, and its former Attorney General, education in Maine is a local affair, and state law has nothing to say about teaching marriage. The current state Attorney General was unambiguous about that fundamental fact, and seems flabbergasted that the idea would even occur to anyone.

Schubert is not one to worry about the reality-based world, though. If scaring parents worked politically in California, he’ll give it a whirl in Maine, too.

But the No on 1 campaign hasn’t let itself get bamboozled. Schubert may not understand Maine – or need to -- but people who actually live there, and get elected there, and teach there, do. And all of them know that when it comes to marriage, Maine’s schools are subject to powerful and sensible local control, with no directives from the state.

This is a senseless argument, and a cruel tactic, and Maine's voters are only suffering through it because it worked for Schubert in California. Well, Maine ain’t California, and I wish the state’s voters well in making sure Schubert learns that lesson.

(H/T to Pam's House Blend)

The Hobgoblin of Little Minds

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

It looks like the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is ready to declare outright war on whatever believers still inhabit the pews. Their pastoral letter on marriage will be debated formally next month, but a preview is available. I’ve long since left the Catholic church (I can only take so much), but even if I were a heterosexual whose interests the church purports to protect, I think this would be the final straw for me.

The church is nothing if not consistent on sex (bad in general, good if it’s “ordered” toward procreation), but this time out the Bishops seem comfortable squarely placing heterosexual couples who use contraception in the same moral position as same-sex couples. In fact, this letter may be the first time I’ve heard church officials explicitly employ the same language about married couples using birth control as they use about homosexuality. The letter describes contraception as an “intrinsically evil action.” That’s very close to the language they use about homosexuality. In fact, I think we’re only “intrinsically disordered,” without the “evil.” The National Catholic Reporter (which is independent of the church) cites surveys showing 96% of married American Catholics use birth control, which is “within a margin of error of complete unanimity.”

Is the American church ready to show American heterosexuals the same level of condescension they have previously reserved for us? That’s up to them, of course. And I could be wrong about this, since I’m no expert on Catholic theology.

The condescension and theological arrogance of writing -- and thinking -- like this may be the biggest problem the church faces. Pastoral letters and other pronouncements from the Vatican seem to make a conscious effort to come from a world that Catholic believers don’t live in, or maybe even recognize. As the bishops pontificate (you should pardon the word) in plummy grandiloquence about “the language of the body” and the “unitive” nature of marriage, you can almost feel the defensiveness from this famously unmarried and theoretically celibate clergy. Be sure to check out the part of the letter where the bishops explain why the Bible’s description of Eve as a “helpmate” to Adam not only doesn’t mean she was intended to be his inferior, but take their paternalistic case of nerves one step further to argue that the Bible also uses the original word translated as "helpmate" (“ezer”) to describe God, himself. You can almost hear them cheering on Catholic women with a hearty but very self-conscious, “You go, girl!”

While the bishops and the Vatican indulge themselves in their pomposity, American Catholics continue their lives in the reality-based world. In addition to those who use contraception (i.e. pretty much everyone), 45% of American Catholics support same-sex marriage – in fact, Catholics have the highest support of any denomination; a full 62% of them support civil unions.

Ironically, that’s probably a tribute to the church, itself, which has a history of social involvement, justice and intellectual engagement. Those things have taken a backseat to foolish and pedantic imagined consistencies on sex these days, but perhaps believers are willing to forgive even this and hope that it, too, will pass.

The pastoral letter will probably not change any minds. But then, it’s not really intended to. That, in fact, may be the biggest problem my former church faces.

Small Favors

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

I’d like to speak up in favor of the White House statement on the two anti-gay referenda. It is easy to be cynical about the statement, and there is certainly no shortage of evidence to support cynicism. But it will help.

Here is the statement:

 “The President has long opposed divisive and discriminatory efforts to deny rights and benefits to same-sex couples, and as he said at the Human Rights Campaign dinner, he believes ‘strongly in stopping laws designed to take rights away.’ Also at the dinner, he said he supports, ‘ensuring that committed gay couples have the same rights and responsibilities afforded to any married couple in this country.’"

Andrew may be right that the President is not putting his weight behind us in either Maine or Washington, but the politics of this issue is not so straightforward. This one’s a bank shot.

Obama is not going to support gay marriage yet. End of sentence. There is no rational or moral reason for his position, and he knows enough not to even try to offer one. It’s an assertion without a foundation, and one that more than half of all Americans continue to believe.

But we have two very close elections to worry about now. One is in Maine with California’s Frank Schubert at the helm again trying to terrify voters about gay marriage. Schubert is as savvy and dangerous a political flack as exists, and he’ll use anything to win – including Obama’s on the record statement to Rick Warren expressing his personal belief that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Obama is not going to take back his statement to Warren. But when the White House says, in an official statement, that Obama believes “strongly” in stopping laws “designed to take rights away” (as Maine’s referendum is), our side is no longer defenseless when and if Schubert tries to use the President’s words against us.

It is not perfect, and it is not what we need most. But it is more than the nothing Obama gave us in California.

And it is a little more than that in Washington State. A contemporaneous statement of his support for our equal rights will go a long way to help us approve Referendum 71. While the opposition is doing everything it can to make that election, too, about same-sex marriage, it is not. Washington’s legislature has been working incrementally to make domestic partnership there more equal to marriage, and passed a law that does exactly what the President said – and now says again – that he supports. Again, it is not perfect, and it is not what we need most. But it is not nothing, and our side will be able to use the President’s words, dated this month.

I fully understand and share the frustration of people who want more from the President. The nation has changed since Bill Clinton was in the White House. But we can’t forget the fundamental lesson from the 1990s: When it comes to gay rights, it’s not the principle that is most potent, it’s the backlash. Clinton did not want to sign either DADT or DOMA (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it). In both of those cases, he was dealing with incendiary reactions to pro-gay statements. And both were compromises to proposals that would have been worse: a complete ban on gays in the military and a constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage.

The nation has moved a lot on DADT and civil unions. But it hasn’t moved enough yet on marriage, where 53% of Americans still haven’t come around. They will. I, too, would like to see Obama lead the nation into its best instincts on this issue rather than follow its worst.

But if we can win in both Maine and Washington, I think we will have turned a corner. Obama’s statement does help us some in both states, and we should use it for all it’s worth.

Barney Frank is Wrong -- We're Not Like the NRA

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

With all due respect to Barney Frank, enough with the NRA comparisons.

In defending his dismissive remarks of the National Equality March, Frank has said we should follow the example of the most effective lobbying group in the country – the National Rifle Association – and do our lobbying work at the district level. The NRA doesn’t hold marches, and, according to Frank, we shouldn’t waste our time either.

Barney’s wrong. First, this obscures the fact that lesbians and gay men are a very small minority. U.S. gun ownership runs between 21.6% and 50%. Every one of those people has a very direct interest in gun laws. You can’t fairly compare their numbers to the 3-5% of gays and lesbians in the country. While we have an ever-increasing number of supporters who are willing to vote for our equality, their interest is indirect: justice and fairness for their friends and family, and maybe even in general. That is a tribute to them and to generations of lesbians and gay men who took the risks of coming out to try and persuade them.

What Frank assumes is that, like NRA members, our supporters would also have the single-minded dedication we do, in every congressional district in the nation, to put unified and unceasing pressure on members of congress.

There are places in the country where that might happen. But that’s the second reason the NRA analogy is wrong. Those people overwhelmingly live in places were we already have the congressional support we need. It is exactly in the places where we need the help that we would have the fewest straight supporters to do what the NRA does.

That is the paradox of being, not just a minority, but an extremely small minority in a democratic nation. No one but us actually experiences the day-to-day effects of discrimination, and because we are all part of the larger public, it is hard to get our unique but intense problem onto the national agenda for a sustained period of time. A national march does that for a day or two, but already the media has moved on to – what are for them – more important issues to the public at large.

When our problems are national in scope (as they are with DADT and DOMA) we have to do things nationally to call attention to the problem. Barney Frank’s prescription presupposes support in places where we need it the most and have the hardest time getting it.

It’s enough to make reasonable non gun-owners mad enough to go out and join the NRA.

Foggy, With a Chance of Disappointment

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

Despite good financial news from the Maine campaign for our equality, the storm clouds are gathering, in the form of "Fog."

This video from Focus on the Family (courtesy of GoodAsYou) lays out the red carpet for Maine ads using President Obama's personal belief that marriage is between a man and a woman against us.

As I said earlier, if Obama wants to help us in this single state -- Maine -- he doesn't need to ask Congress for a thing; though permission from Rahm Emanuel is probably at least as hard to come by.

But it is not entirely a matter of Obama helping us. He is on the record in a way that can and will hurt us. If he says nothing about Maine, then his comments to Rick Warren can accurately and honestly be used, as they were in California, to help convince moderate voters to repeal equal marriage rights. This is not a national issue, and he is not the President of Maine. But his lack of clarification is his consent to the anti-equality campaign to use these existing remarks as is.

The President knows this. He is the only person who can do anything about it. His silence here would be his most eloquent refutation of his expressed good intentions. That is so clear, even Focus on the Family can see it.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast. . .

info@indegayforum.org (David Link) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by David Link

While tens of thousands of people were marching in DC for gay equality, a few of us were in Los Angeles piecing together the events on this coast that made all this possible.

The occasion was the book release party for Tom Coleman's memoirs, The Domino Effect. Tom is one of the key figures in gay history who fought tirelessly in L.A., first to eliminate our state sodomy law, then to chip away at the other vague laws which the police used to harass us, and most significantly to find a way for the culture and the law to include same-sex couples within the definition of family. That effort put California in the nation's forefront in having our elected leaders reshape the law before the courts needed to. If you want to know how important California is in gay rights, ask yourself why the State of New York, which has had an organized gay community for about as long as California, continues -- to this day -- not to have even so much as domestic partnership for the state's same-sex couples. My answer: They lacked a Tom Coleman.

As Tom was briefly recounting his career, I could not help but notice how many of the key figures in the room he was thanking were heterosexuals whose role in our movement is both essential and unrecognized: State Senator David Roberti; Attorney General John Van de Kamp; L.A. City Attorney Burt Pines (absent due to a hospitalization, but definitely in everyone's mind); L.A. City Councilman Mike Woo; Wallace Albertson; Dr. Nora Baladerian; Judge Arthur Gilbert. Whether you know their names and contributions or not, these are what fierce advocates of gay equality look like.

But they had to be coaxed into action by gay advocates with farsightedness, political wisdom and sheer common sense: Jay Kohorn and Chris McCauley, and, of course, Tom, were at the head of that list. This small band of people came together and used the freedom and tools our political system offers to turn a world that had no place at all for same-sex couples into one where our chief complaint is that the compromise they devised and then implemented -- domestic partnership -- is viewed by some people as good enough, at least for us. It was a fine compromise for the world that existed in the 1980s and 90s; but it is a step toward equality that arose from political necessity; it is not equality itself.

If what you know about the history of gay rights in California is Harry Hay and Del Martin and Harvey Milk, there are entire chapters left to understand. Tom's book will not be the last word on these people's place in our history. But it is a good start.